Spa City ups utility's rent

National Grid will now pay $187,200 a year to use truck storage site

Published 9:29 pm, Wednesday, October 17, 2012

SARATOGA SPRINGS — National Grid will pay Saratoga Springs more than triple what it does now to lease city-owned property on Weibel Avenue under a deal approved by the City Council this week.

The city will raise the rent on National Grid's truck and storage facility on the east side of the city to $15,600 a month from $5,000, or to $187,200 a year from $60,000, said Mayor Scott Johnson, who announced the contract's new terms at Tuesday's City Council meeting.

The deal starts Nov. 1 and lasts five years with an option for National Grid to extend for another five years. Rent increases built into the contract could bring the city up to $16,554 a month by the 10th year, Johnson said. A clause allows either party to terminate the agreement with two years notice.

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"It's a good deal for the city," Johnson said Wednesday. "We want National Grid to be in our community."

The contract updates an old one that expired in 2009. Since then, the company has rented the property under the old lease's terms on a monthly basis. A National Grid spokesman declined comment on the agreement on Wednesday.

Johnson completed the deal two weeks after members of a nonpartisan group called Saratoga Citizen publicly challenged city officials to reach an improved deal with National Grid, saying the rental fee it was paying was far below current commercial rental market rates. The group's supporters back a measure on the city's November ballot to change the city's form of government to one led by a professional manager, and had cited the expired contract with National Grid as a lost opportunity to increase revenue.

Years without the new contract cost taxpayers a total of some $300,000, Patrick Kane, cofounder of Saratoga Citizen, said in a press release dated Oct. 2. On Tuesday, he credited the council for the action, but said he was glad the group took up the cause.

Johnson disputed the "lost rent" accusation. He said the new lease was negotiated to recoup past rental money the city may have missed out on.

"This was an important part of the negotiating process between the city and National Grid," the mayor said.